Thread: What happened to these valve/rocker arm shims?

Feeler gauge?

^^^ lol

Bumping for an update as this also happened to a friend of mine. He did the Tomei solid lifters and everything was installed/measured professionally and the exact sized shims were ordered from Tomei. After a couple thousand miles a bunch of the shims were dished in like the ones pictured in the OP.

Ahh, lol. It turned out to be that I was running the wrong cams. They were cams designed for the factory hydraulic lifters (which can be more aggressive due to the "give" in the lifters). I knew this which is why I ordered solid lifter cams originally... but was shipped hydraulic lifter cams and never knew about it. Which is why I was chasing my tail for YEARS trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with my setup, lol. I finally broke down, bought a new set of cams, and voila! Quiet as a mouse. She runs great now, and is even quieter than factory (other than the exhaust/intake). Make sure your friend has the right cams, they need to be designed for solid lifters! You can't run stock cams (except GTiR ones).

Very important to have the correct cams for these engines. Quite a nuisance but this thread proves how valuable it is to know what stuff is going on.


That is a huge shame you had no idea the cams were incorrect and this happened but at least it was figured out and with a minimal amount of "damage".

Yeah, the paperwork said they were solid lifter cams and everything (bought them new from phase2motortrend) but never thought to double check the P/N on the Tomei boxes when they came in. I do now on everything! Ha ha. Oh well, you live and learn. I had to get the head redone because the valve step tops were worn out from all of this. Now I have Ferrea +1mm valves all around with supertech valve guides, lol.

What spring pressure are you running? What size cams?

If I remember correctly they are seat pressure: 90 @ 40.5 (Open: 202@ 10). Cams are 12mm lift 260 duration. I originally thought it was the spring pressure, but it wasn't, lol.

I further read into the thread. You can technically run the hydraulic cams in a solid lifter setup, but yes it will cause this problem. Also hydraulic cams in a solid lifter setup makes an loud tapping,ticking noise constantly, makes it sound like something is loose in the valvetrain.